Navy SEAL Officer Ed Gallrein on Drones Flying Over the U.S.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Got a chance to meet Ed gaal Ran back when
he was running for the Kentucky States, said what a
great Kentucky and he is farmer ed fifth generation Navy
Seal Officer, Army ranger. Amongst all of the just so
many different things that Ed Galran has done for us,
meaning us and our you know, our whole country. Seal

(00:21):
Commodore earned four Bronze Stars, two Presidential Unit citations equivalent
to Navy Cross for his extraordinary bravery. And he's joining
us this morning to talk and discuss a lot of
things on the table. And Ed, good to have you here.
Thanks for joining us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, good morning, Tony, thanks for having me on. Good
morning to the listeners. With an honor and privilege to
serve our nation and lead seals and special operations forces
all over the globe to protect our in the great nation,
They're remarkable, true, Tony. Could we jump right in on
the drones and all the reports.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, let's let's let's talk right about that, because everybody's
been confused, including a lot of the congress persons in politicos.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Right, and that I'm not sure that's helpful to the
cause for understanding for the American citizen, it might be
useful to better understand what's going on now to review
the recent instances of drones have been used against the
US to look for what we call in the intelligence world,
contours or trends and patterns as we evaluate capability and
intent of our adversaries. As a reminder, the Chinese balloon,

(01:24):
essentially a drone that overflew the US and huvered over
sensitive sites in January and February of twenty twenty three,
clearly violated sovereign US airspace. It was only one of
many Chinese by balloons collecting intelligence on the US during
that period, including one balloon that overflew the US carry
Strike Group in the Pacific, another one that went around
the world collecting and violating other sovereign airspace. Reportedly tony

(01:48):
US intelligence agencies were aware that up to four additional
Chinese by balloons overflew the US in that period, including
their Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and Guam, and assessments are that
all the balloons carried sophisticated surveillance equipment to collect a
full spectrum of intelligence, not just imagery and photos and video.
Think an intelligence vacuum cleaner Tony, Now I got to

(02:12):
add that. Additionally, reportedly, the Chinese balloon that overflew the
US had a huge number of sophisticated on board sensors
and antennas. More interesting is the fact it had a
massive solar power generating capability to generate enough sustained energy
to operate very hot tech surveillance or connoissance systems, including
what is called synthetic apterture radar think X ray vision.

(02:36):
Tony can see through materials. So that is very concerning
now here in the US. What we've got to be
concerned about, there's increasing use of drones. In fact, a
Chinese national graduate student was convicted in July for taking
drones footage of the shipbuilding facilities in near Norfolk where
US ships and submarines or building secure areas. And then

(02:58):
here in November, Chinese citizen and in Los Angeles was
arrested and he was accompanied by another Chinese national who
had just entered the US days prior, for operating a
drone and taking images of our very sensitive Vanderberg Space
Air Force Base, one of our most sensitive sites for
launching rockets related to satellite activities. And Tony, the Chinese

(03:18):
have aggressively purchased farmland and property in remote areas, including
their at least seventeen sensitive bases, including right here in
Kentucky near Fort Campbell. Remember that is home of the
most three of storied units in the US military that
re maintaining an alert, posture Hunter and first Airborne fifth
Special Forces Group that operates in the Mideast in Task

(03:39):
Force one sixty, the Nightstalkers, highly skilled special operation helicopter unit. Now,
these remote areas could certainly be used to operate drones
and or passive listening or collection bases. And Tony has
a fifth generation farmer career, navycl officer, military intelligence officer,
I can state with some degree of confidence the Chinese
are not likely coming to the US North Kentucky to

(03:59):
be farmers. The profit margins are too thin for that, Tony.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, just to play on that for just a second.
Why are we allowing this to happen?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I mean, great question, and that does raise a lot
of further questions and other mine's credibility, frankly of the
administration when they try to explain away, you know, nothing
going on here, now, Tony, we got also add not
only in the US and Europe to undersea cables carrying
Internet data deep in the Baltic Sea were damaged, and
there was a Chinese ship nearby. That was right after

(04:33):
the Russians said they were going to respond to the
US allowing the use of long range missiles in Ukraine
against them. So there might be a cooperation going on
between the Chinese and the Russians. Because in the second
half of our session this morning, we'll talk about the
collection not only in the US but also at overseas

(04:53):
bases in Europe about what appears to be a massive
drone flights.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Tony, all right, Ed, we'll do that next when we
come back with the Ed Gaal Ryan, a member of
the Special Navy Teals excuse me, Navy Seal Team six,
as many of you might already know, but if you don't,
he's a great guy and a great American. We'll talk
to Ed Moore here in about four minutes on news

(05:19):
Ready away forty whas I was happy to talk to
Navy Seal officer and Army ranger qualified now gall Ryan,
excuse me, who led sensitive special operations in support of
US national security strategy informed policy objectives as well.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Ed.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Let's get back to the drones that we saw over
on our east coast, particularly in the Jersey, Maryland, even
as far as maybe right Patterson there in Columbus, or
in Ohio, I should say Dayton.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Right there yet near Dayton, very very sensitive sight. So
what we have just to give the review of what
occurred drones sidings include that in December, for over two weeks,
a dozen or more small drones repletedly overflew Langley Air
Force Base in the Norfolk area. That's where advanced F
twenty two Raptor stealth fighters are. Reports are also they
overflew a sensitive Stelteam compound in the Norfolk area as well.

(06:14):
Now it's worth noting that other sensitive bases recently overflown
by drones in the same time frame the same time
frame include the Picatinny Arsenal and New Jersey and Army
Research and Development Base. Also, as you mentioned, right Patterson
Air Force Base in Ohio, that's the Air Force's major
research and development base. Also the Naval Weapons Station in

(06:36):
earl And, New Jersey, a major US Navy weapons and
storage base. Now what wasn't much reported but did occur.
Similar incidents occurred at bases in the UK including rif Lakenheath,
RIF Millden Hall, rif felt Well, and also in Germany
at Ramstein air Base, all in the same time frame

(06:57):
and manner, all sensitive sites where we have forward base
forces and drone in the past weeks led to an
hour long closure of runways at New York Stewart International
Airport for our closure around right pat near Dayton and
the rest of the two men in Boston, the rest
of them of flying a drone too close to the Logan
International Airport, but no other information has come out from

(07:17):
the authorities about that. So in some about one hundred
of the more than five thousand drone sightings in the
US report of the FBI were deemed credible enough to
warrant more investigation, But the question remains who's operating these
drones now? As you mentioned earlier, the problem is a
lack of confidence of getting straight answers from US government
officials over a range of issues, from the Afghanistan withdrawal,

(07:37):
previous Chinese balloon flights border crossing by one hundreds on
the cherishs watch list, so speculation is raged despite their
official statements like it's unlikely their drones are engaged intelligence
gathering and such and so, and that could be a
leap of faith because what they're discounting is we may
not be seeing all the drones and sometimes they could
hide in plane sighting be well lit. Other times they

(07:58):
could be flying at shoulder lefl blacked out. And remember
a drone is a general term for that unmanned flying
system which could have a variety of collection capabilities, not
just video. So let's talk about possible scenarios. Tony, I,
who's good. Let's put some out there now. It could
be testing of sensitive capabilities by US government agency or agencies,

(08:19):
Requiring conditions include darkness, urban and military based area to
replicate a future operating environment that they are expected to operating.
So let's put that one on the list and go
to another one. Another possibility is what we call red
team testing of our own defenses of sensitive sites against
adversary drone incursions to replicate a future threat we have identified.

(08:40):
So let's put that one on the list. Another possibility
is the actual employment of sensitive capabilities by US government
agencies conducting defensive searches to identify threats or locate item
or items. Requiring conditions include darkness to be most effective
and protect the capability that we're employing to do for

(09:01):
lack of the term overwatch these sites and areas. So
that's another one. Another wise we're being defensive. But Tony,
we cannot discount the possibility, consistent with the previous balloon
flights and other activities in Europe, that this has been
done by foreign adversary or adversaries or conducting intelligence collection
operations requiring darkness for covering concealment, but using lights of

(09:24):
time to appear to be legitimate. They would be what
we call mapping, so to speak, collecting a full spectrum
of data and intelligence to include our activities that those
sensitive sites and testing our capability. And this is important
as well, Tony, our will to respond to incursions as such,
they're probing and it could be rehearsals for an actual

(09:45):
future attack.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
President elect Trump said the government knows what's going on.
Is are there times like these though, where the government
doesn't need to, you know, make this public or what
are your thoughts about.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
That great point? It could be in the best interest
of what capabilities we have and to defend, to not
disclose what we know that could and also I should
add what we saw here in these past few weeks
could be a surge by adversaries that to the points

(10:18):
of the new administration coming in that they're going to
see that they're going to have a lot less freedom
of action to conducting nefarious activities against the US. So
they're surging to finish their target packages because they have
gaps in their information. They need to target US sites
and the United States of American forward basis. But that's
a great point, Tony. We can't discount that there is

(10:40):
in fact information out there that it's best not to
divulge at this time because of its classification, and it
would give the adversary and advantage.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
All right, real quickly. Two Navy pilots had to object
after they were down by a friendly fire over the weekend.
Your thoughts and how does this happen?

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, first of all, we should remember that this is
the most sustained US naval force activity since World War Two.
I want you to hold that thought. What we're doing
in the Mid East. So I hate to say it,
but just things are gonna happen. No blame whatsoever on
those forces and what occurred there. It's what we call
blue on blue where we accidentally shot down one of

(11:18):
our own aircraft. But factoring in all the activity over there,
whether it's a mechanical problem, bad weather, things break, things happen,
you've got to factor in. There's occasionally going to be
a mishapper, an accident. It's very regrettable. Fortunately they weren't lost,
uh and uh we're going to celebrate that. But Tony,

(11:39):
we got to remember that that's a sustained activity over
there that is unprecedented. As we're dealing with the unrest
in the Mid East, and the root of that is
i Ran. We're treating the symptoms, dealing with the Houthis
and Hamas and hbala uh, and the real root of
it is Iran and that's going to have to be
dealt with.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Appreciate you time as always, Ed, you and your family,
have a wonderful Christmas, and we'll talk again soon. We've
got a lot to talk about with Syria and everything else.
It's in the Middle East.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Buckle up for twenty twenty five, Tony, Thank you so much, Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Sir, all right, there you go. Navy Seal Team Captain
ed Gialryan joining us here on kentect Canna's Morning News